Sorry, Wrong Number
by Erisah Mae
Summary: It is absolutely not Kakashi's fault that Gai and Obito are together. Nope. Not even a bit. Well maybe a bit. Okay. If he hadn't been a jerk, this would not be currently happening.
1. Part 1

_Lime Green lime green and tangerine. The sickly sweet colours of the devil in my dreams- The Cure_

Part 1

The first time Kakashi saw Obito and Gai in a room together was entirely unremarkable. Come to think of it, the second through to probably about the several-thousandth times were pretty unremarkable. They had after all, all been classmates back when the three of them had all been children.

Kakashi was quite firm on reminding people that. It was important to establish, because he _was not going to be blamed for introducing the two of them_.

"Aw but Bakashi, we might never have become reacquainted if it hadn't been for you!" Obito cooed from two barstools over when Kakashi protested for what had to be at least the fourth time in one night.

Kakashi just groaned and let his head fall forward onto the bar, determinedly ignoring the stickiness of spilled beer that instantly adhered to his forehead.

"Yes! My Most Esteemed Rival! It Is You We Have To Thank And I Am Very Grateful That You Aided Me In Finding My Delightful Tangerine!" Gai enthused about a foot from Kakashi's ear.

"Inside voice Gai," Obito reminded him, apparently unperturbed at being called a fruit.

Although come to think of it…

Nah, too easy, Kakashi decided. Pretty much the definition of low-hanging fruit, but if Kakashi opened the floor to puns, he would be the one suffering the punishment.

…which his brain was apparently already bent on inflicting on him without his two loudest friends' help, so clearly he needed more alcohol.

He looked up and caught the eye of the bartender, whose expression was somewhere between schadenfreude and an impending headache.

Kakashi knew that expression well. That was how _he_ normally felt when he inflicted his friends on other people.

He should never have put them back in touch with one another, not even for his own sick amusement.

Kakashi could admit, in the privacy of his own head, that his little prank had backfired and _hard_.

"Another round, please," came the voice of his relatively _sane_ friend Rin.

(Although then again, she was three months into night shifts on her first residency, this was the first night off she'd had in about three weeks, and the manic exhaustion in her eyes reminded Kakashi that Rin's sanity was indeed relative. Still, it was an improvement on how she'd been when she'd been attending med school. Somewhat.)

When it came, Kakashi knocked back his beer like it was a shot.

"Oh don't be such a big baby," Rin said, shoving his shoulder. Even without looking directly at her, Kakashi could _hear_ the eyeroll. "You should be happy that two of our friends are so happy together," she continued, gesturing to where Obito and Gai were loudly arguing about who should choose the next song on the jukebox. (Obito was apparently missing that Gai was loudly arguing that Obito should choose the next song, or maybe he was well aware and was just winding him up for the fun of it. It was hard to tell which it was.)

Kakashi turned so that he could glare properly at Rin, since she was sitting in his blind spot.

"I _am_ happy for _them_ ," he admitted, "but that doesn't mean that I'm not pre-emptively quivering in terror for the rest of us. It is an unholy union that will cause double the mayhem, mark my words," he complained.

A dark corner of Kakashi's mind reminded him that this was probably the most positive thing he had ever done to or for Obito, and it hadn't even been entirely on purpose. Not like…

He refused to turn and look at the scars. He wouldn't do that, and make Obito feel self-conscious, and then bring the tone of the whole night down.

Rin, because she was basically psychic (or because she just knew Kakashi so well that she could read his thoughts from his face, either option was equally alarming really), huffed at him and said, "quit beating yourself up. You were young, stupid, and he forgave you ages ago. You weren't those rock-heads who caused the crash, and he was just as dumb as you to get into that car in the first place," she reminded him.

Kakashi grimaced. Rin was doing that thing where she accidentally did an unnervingly accurate impression of his psychologist. Which probably meant that she had a decent point, but the mistakes of his thirteen-year-old self had left rather permanent marks, especially on his best friend, and sometimes it was just so hard to…

No, focus. Don't let your brain go down that path again, nothing productive lies there.

"Fine," he huffed, pretending affront. "Besides, why dwell on past mistakes when I have _recent_ mistakes to dwell on," he grumbled, waving one hand in the direction of where Gai and Obito had apparently stopped arguing in favour of making out obnoxiously against the jukebox.

Rin just laughed at him.

...

 _A/N: To be continued..._


	2. Part 2

_Hello?_  
 _Are you still there?_  
 _Hello? are you still there?_  
 _And much too late_  
 _Sorry, wrong number_  
 _Sorry, wrong number (yeah sorry you have the wrong number) - The Cure_  


Part 2

Obito heard Rin laughing in the background, and was mostly certain that she was laughing at Kakashi, who was being a _giant drama queen_ about this whole him and Gai thing.

(Him and Gai were a thing! There would come a time when he was not secretly a little giddy about that. That time was not now.)

The giant drama queen thing was fairly typical of Kakashi, really, so Obito probably shouldn't have been surprised. After all, when Obito had managed to lose Kakashi's number at some point in between exclusive clinics after his Great Uncle Madara had spirited him away to get the best medical attention that money could buy, Kakashi had apparently managed to convince himself that Obito was _dead_.

(Admittedly it had been touch and go in some of the early days, but _honestly._ If nothing else, the Uchiha would probably have sued Kakashi for every last scrap of his measly inheritance if Obito had not been there to intervene… but then Obito had to remind himself that he had largely shielded his friends from the giant bag of dicks he had as blood relations, and so they had no way to know.)

It was kind of funny though how Kakashi was convinced that his moment of meanness in """accidentally""" giving Obito the wrong number had come back to bite him in the ass.

Because Obito had been living abroad until the last of his surgeries were finally, ( _finally,_ ) finished with, he had largely been keeping touch with his old friends from Konoha via social media, with the occasional skype call thrown in.

So naturally, he hadn't had Kakashi's most recent phone number.

Obito, being _not a paranoid lunatic_ , had assumed that when Kakashi had given him a phone number to contact when Obito's plane hit tarmac, that that number was Kakashi's.

As it had turned out, not so much.

Obito, sore and stiff and tired from a 23 hour flight that he had not been able to sleep on, (regardless of the nice business-class seat that Great Uncle Madara had shelled out for,) had collected his orange suitcase (what? Orange was great and it was easier to find than any other colour in amongst the blacks and navies that everyone else seemed to go for) walked to the nearest public telephone (he needed to buy a Konoha SIM card before he could make calls on his mobile phone) and dialled the number.

"Hello!" a man's voice answered.

Obito blinked heavy eyelids. That did not sound like Kakashi.

"What Can I do For You On This Most Glorious Spring Morning?" the voice, gruff but energetic, continued to enthuse in his ear.

Obito frowned. "What's glorious about it? The sun isn't even up yet, and I just got off an international flight," he demanded. (It was _not_ a whine. Uchiha did not whine.)

"Indeed? How Exciting that you are Embracing Your Youth By Travelling! But I would say that this morning is Particularly Glorious because it has finally stopped Raining and so I can Train in the Beautiful Outdoors!"

 _Alrighty then…_

Obito decided he was too tired and under-caffeinated to debate with the obvious nutjob (Morning Person, enough said), and instead just mumbled that he was pretty sure he had the wrong number, apologised, and hung up.

He squinted down at the phone, and dialled the number Kakashi had given him again, taking care to enter each individual digit.

"Hello!"

It was the same guy from before.

Obito groaned before he could stop himself. "Sorry, it's me again. I must be too tired to type straight."

"Not a Problem! I Hope You Reach Your Friend Soon, You Sound in Need Of Recuperation!"

Obito snorted. "Yeah, that's one way of putting it. What I wouldn't give right now for a clean surface in a quiet dark room to crash in for a couple of REM cycles. Sorry to bother you."

"No Bother! Have a Nice Day!"

Obito hung up, staring a little incredulously at the handset. At least he hadn't wrecked some stranger's day by calling them up before dawn, but this guy was unreal.

This time, he decided he didn't trust himself to dial the number, and asked a bored-looking teenager to do it for him. She gave him an odd look, but indulged him. He leaned up against the wall beside the phone and propped himself up against it.

 _So. Tired._

As he listened to the dial tone, he could feel himself listing to one side.

 _For fuck's sake Bakashi, pick up you bastard._

This time when the other side was picked up, the response was different.

"Hello Again Friend!"

Obito facepalmed and admitted defeat. There was no way he could have made the same mistake three times, so obviously the problem wasn't him.

He was going to punch Kakashi in the _balls_.

"I am _so_ sorry about this. Apparently my friend gave me the wrong number to contact him with. Shit. This was _not_ how I wanted to spend my first day back in Konoha. What the hell am I going to do?" he groaned. "I don't have any idea where he lives, I don't have enough on me for a taxi even if I did, and I'm going to be trapped in this airport forever!" he absolutely did not wail. (Uchiha did not wail. They did however occasionally give into the proportionately dramatic expression appropriate for a situation.)

"Are you okay?" the man asked him, voice quieter and calm, suddenly switching gears from the previously displayed exuberance.

Obito slumped against the wall. "I am too tired to think straight, and I need to take my pain meds, and this is day one back in country and my _asshole friend has given me the wrong contact number!_ "

"You said you were at Konoha Airport, right?"

Obito grunted something approaching agreement.

Fortunately, it seemed like the guy on the other end of the phone spoke Exhausted Traveller, Uchiha Dialect, because he responded as though Obito had said something intelligible.

"I live somewhat close by. If you want, I could pick you up?"

Obito considered this unexpected proposal.

"You could crash at mine for a couple of hours," the man continued, "get some sleep, and then try again with a clear head?"

Sleep _did_ sound enticing. And this guy was an appalling morning person, but he didn't sound like a total freak…

Right?

Normally, Obito would have been more hesitant to take a stranger up on an offer like that, but right this second, the guy was offering him everything he desperately wanted.

(Besides, even tired, it wasn't like Obito couldn't protect himself. Great Uncle Madara's input to Obito's rehabilitation had been intense martial arts training, and a _really nice_ set of ceramic knives that Obito had carefully packed on the top of his suitcase where they were easily accessible the second he was off the plane.)

Obito made an impulsive decision that he was almost certain he would regret later.

"Fuck it. Sure. I'll be the poor bastard waiting out the front of Arrivals with the orange suitcase and the scars."

"I Will See You Soon!" the man hung up.

Obito stared blankly at the receiver before hanging up. He wanted to know what blend of stimulant this guy was taking, because whatever it was, Obito desperately needed some.

Twenty minutes of waiting later, and Obito saw a lime green Smart car approaching the Pick Up bay.

Somehow, he just _knew_ that this was his ride. After all, he thought, laughing a little as the car rolled to a stop in front of him, what the hell else would a morning person drive?

The driver's door opened, and a man leapt out.

(Literally. Obito was quietly amazed and appalled that _anyone_ had so much energy at this time of morning.)

The first thing that Obito noticed (and he was immediately a little embarrassed about this) was that the man had the thickest eyebrows he could remember ever seeing.

The second thing was _damn, I have never seen spandex filled out like_ that _with my own two eyes._

The Bruce Lee haircut was a little weird too, but despite himself, Obito couldn't help but notice how the man also appeared to be built along the lines of Bruce Lee – muscular, but in the way of an athlete or a martial artist, rather than a gym junkie trying to build muscle for the look of it.

Well, at least the guy would have resembled Bruce Lee if Bruce Lee was 6 feet tall.

Obito dry-swallowed.

Apparently his libido was somehow wide awake.

 _Oh hell._ This was such a stupid fucking idea. He didn't even know this guy's name, he was apparently going home with him and he was _so Obito's type._ Oh _hell_.

"That you, Morning Person?" he asked, somehow managing to keep his voice smooth.

( _Keep it cool Obito, you don't even know if he's into men._

 _Please be gay, bi, pan, I don't care just please don't be straight or taken, I've been good, Kami…_ )

"Is that You, Friend?" the man responded, sounding exactly as he had on the phone.

Obito wavered momentarily, but then decided that this wasn't the stupidest decision he had ever made.

(Granted the stupidest decision he had ever made had involved getting into a car driven by a 13-year-old Kakashi, but in Obito and Kakashi's defence, the crash had not been his fault. That hadn't really mattered much once Obito was healed up enough for his family to feel comfortable lecturing him about their poor decision making. Constantly.)

His hormones were absolutely not affecting his decision-making. Not even a bit. Nope. Not going to mention the fact that this guy was basically sex on two ridiculous orange-legwarmer-covered legs, or that Obito could already envisage what it would be like to remove this guy's leotard _with his teeth_.

If this ended badly, he was blaming it all on Bakashi. Clearly his fault for basically abandoning Obito at the airport to the mercy of this total smoking hot stranger.

 _Shit. Should really get his name._

"I'm Obito. You?"

"Call me Gai. I take it you are the Stranger In Need with the Orange Suitcase?"

Obito just sighed. At least the guy, (or Gai, rather, though Obito was half convinced that the name was fake and this was such a terrible terrible idea, except –) apparently had enough tact to neither mention the scarring, nor stare at it.

That was unusual, and kind of nice.

"Yeah, that would be me."

Gai offered him a beaming smile of startlingly white teeth, and popped open the tiny car boot. Obito was instantly glad that he had packed relatively light, he didn't think so much as a single grocery bag would have fit in that boot with his suitcase as was. Whilst Gai's back was turned, he took his camera out and surreptitiously took a shot of the number plate. If he ended up dead in some ditch, at least there would be a hope of the police finding his sexy, sexy killer.

 _Oh god Obito was way too tired to make good decisions._

He stowed his bag, and flopped into the passenger seat. Gai meticulously checked his mirrors, and then pulled out from the kerb so fast that Obito was half surprised that he didn't burn rubber.

Obito wondered if he should find this concerning.

He leaned his head against the window and turned to study Gai through his eyelashes.

"So, I take it I interrupted your morning exercise routine?"

Gai grinned. "No Problem. I will add Ten Kilometres to tomorrow's run to Make Up for it."

Obito blinked. That sounded… excessive.

"Are you a professional athlete or something?" he wondered.

Gai shook his head. "No, I am a Motivational Coach. Mighty Motivation is my Business," he explained proudly.

Well that… made sense actually.

Though something about all this rang a bell…

Obito blamed the fact that he was dead tired for taking so long to put two and two together.

The second that it clicked – Obito knew, deep in his heart, that Kakashi Hatake was a dead man.

"Wait, you wouldn't happen to be the next-door neighbour of an asshole named Kakashi Hatake?"

Gai blinked, clearly a little taken aback, and his brows drew together in consternation.

"Why…" Understanding dawned in his dark brown eyes. "Oh. _Oh_."

"Yup," Obito growled.

(To be fair, Obito consoled himself, when the combination of "green spandex", "loud", "eyebrows" and "training junkie" had been mentioned in Kakashi's regular complaints about his neighbour, "hot like burning" had somehow never come up. Obito felt that this was a serious lapse on his former friend's part.)

Gai seemed to be still wrapping his mind around the situation. "So your Friend who was Supposed to meet you…?"

"Former friend," Obito clarified. Kakashi was _dead to him_.

"Oh," Gai repeated, looking appalled.

There was an awkward pause.

Gai cleared his throat.

"Perhaps My Neighbour gave you the incorrect number by Accident?" he hazarded in a tone that clearly conveyed that he believed no such thing but was willing to pretend for the sake of politeness.

Obito had no such qualms.

"That complete and utter _bastard_. I'm going to _rip his guts out through his nostrils with my bare hands_."

...


	3. Part 3

_You've got to make up your mind and make it soon  
Is there room in your life  
For one more trip to the moon?  
Is there room in your life  
For one more? -The Cure_

Part 3

Gai grimaced a little at Obito's death threat, but did not attempt to further defend Kakashi.

 _Wise move_ , Obito thought.

There was a tense silence as Obito fumed, and Gai watched him warily out the corner of one eye until Obito noticed how uncomfortable he was making the other man.

Well this wouldn't do. Obito knew that he had a filthy temper (the sleepless red-eye flight was hardly helping with his control) but he generally prided himself on not taking out his feelings on the undeserving. Kakashi was dead meat, but it was not

Obito counted to twenty, and then breathed out slowly.

"Sorry," he said. "I promise I won't _actually_ kill him. It's not a good look if a private security consultant like me gets implicated in a murder before I even show up for the first day at work," he joked.

Epiphany dawned in Gai's eyes. "Oh! You are Obito _Uchiha_."

Obito blinked. "Uh, yeah?"

 _How the hell did he figure that out?_ Obito felt himself tense up, ready to deal with… well he didn't know what, but it wasn't like his family were well-liked, what with their general attitude to anyone not Uchiha (and even then Obito, who even if he wasn't decidedly one of the black sheep of the family couldn't say that they were exactly warm and friendly).

Gai turned and beamed at him. "Perhaps it is difficult to recognise me, but we were in the same class."

Oh okay. False alarm. Obito let himself relax a little.

Same class… so, Konoha Academy, obviously, but…

But the only Gai Obito could remember from the Konoha Academy was…

 _No fucking way._

"Holy _shit_ , Maito Gai? _You're_ Maito Gai?"

Obito compared the image in his head of the slightly sullen and weedy teenager to the Bruce Lee double he was riding with, and boggled.

Gai nodded, his smile rueful.

"Damn," Obito marvelled. "While I was out getting hit by the ugly stick, you apparently found the Fountain of Sex Appeal. Good for you, man," he blurted out.

And then froze.

He just said that. Out loud. With his mouth.

So he was apparently at no-filters level of tired.

That would have been _good to know a minute ago_ _so he could have pre-emptively thrown himself from the car._

 _Fuck_.

Obito was so busy freaking out over his _fucking big mouth oh shit why_ that it took him a moment to realise that the car was pulling over.

Oh _shit_ , maybe _Gai_ was about to throw him out of the car. Obito really hoped not. The complete scuppering of the real-people ship he really wanted to launch would be bad enough, but it would be _awkward_ trying to figure out where the hell he was based on memories that were out of date by more than a decade.

The car came to a stop, and Gai switched off the engine.

Obito put one hand on the button of his seatbelt, ready to quickly release himself in case this should turn south.

Gai turned to stare at him, studying Obito intensely.

"I am told that I am somewhat oblivious about these things, but tell me, was that a line?"

Was that hope dawning in those brown eyes? Or was that just what Obito hoped to be seeing?

 _Fuck it._ Obito had probably already put his foot in it, might as well commit.

"Yup," Obito said, tone purposefully casual. "I have eyes, Gai. You're hot as hell. But if you're not into that, or well," there was no point ignoring the obvious, "into _me_ , then I only mean that as a compliment."

Gai cocked his head.

"So I take it you would be Not Adverse to me asking if I could take you out for Coffee?"

Huh. That wasn't a homophobic response. That was the opposite of a homophobic response. That was Gai asking Obito if he could… That was a date.

Well how about that.

 _I've been off the plane for less than an hour, and I have a date. How is this my life._

Obito opened his mouth to respond with an enthusiastic "yes!" but instead yawned.

He changed what he wanted to say for something that (tragically) was a bit more realistic.

"Raincheck? I think I need to sleep for like, a day first. Then well," Obito snorted. "I have your number, and I have a fifty/fifty chance of guessing correctly which side of Bakashi's place you live."

Gai _beamed_.

"Mine is the Home with the Lotus Pond and the Green Door. Indeed we shall, as you say, Raincheck."

Gai turned away and opened the car door. "By the way, you will be Happy to know that we have Arrived."

Huh. So it wasn't just a dramatic pullover. Funny.

Obito gracelessly scrambled from the car, just in time to witness Gai hoisting his orange suitcase onto one shoulder like it was a bag of feathers.

Obito stored away the image for later perusal. At length. That display of strength was giving him all _sorts_ of ideas that he was tragically far too exhausted to explore right this minute. _Soon_ he vowed to himself. If there was any justice in the universe, then sometime in the very near future Obito would be making himself a sensory map of those muscles with his _tongue_.

Obito followed Gai to the front door of a small townhouse, stepping over some chewed-up dog toys that were lying on the steps. Gai put down Obito's suitcase, and rang the doorbell.

"It was Very Nice Meeting You," he said, eyes sparkling. "Please, Call Me Soon."

He turned as if to leave, but Obito's hand acted of its own accord and grabbed him by the front of his leotard.

 _What the hell, hand,_ Obito thought, staring at his own offending appendage. Well yeah, he actually didn't want Gai to leave, but on the other hand (hur hur), this was maybe not the most chill way he could be showing it.

 _He's going to think I'm a gigantic freak_.

A large, warm, heavily callused hand settled over his.

Obito bit the inside of his cheek, half prepared for a rejection, but instead, Gai's other hand gently tipped his head up so that they had eye contact.

To Obito's surprise, Gai's expression wasn't skeeved out, it was, dare he say it, fond.

"Get some sleep, then call me," he said, reiterating his earlier words.

Obito nodded dumbly, but his hand refused to cooperate with the whole letting the nice guy (ha ha, geddit? Oh Kami Obito needed sleep he was starting to get delirious) go plan. He licked his lips, and didn't miss how Gai's pupils widened at the sight.

 _Oh, I can work with_ this.

Gai leaned forward slightly, being a total gentleman by telegraphing his intent and giving Obito all the time in the world to refuse. "Would it be Forward of me to Request if I could-"

Too much talking. Obito decided to shut Gai up with his mouth.

Oh. _Oh._ This might have been the best plan Obito had had all day.

Because damn, even taken a little by surprise, Gai kissed like he wanted to gently take Obito to pieces until Obito screamed for more.

Yup, Obito thought hazily as his toes curled in his sandals and his ability to stand started to get a little iffy due to his knees apparently being made out of overcooked noodles. He was going to crash, and soon, but as soon he woke up, he was going to call this man and then climb this man like a tree.

How convenient that he apparently lived next door to Obito's Worst Best Friend Ever.

Speaking of said asshole...

Vaguely Obito registered that the front door was opening, but he was too busy enjoying the fact that Gai kissed like a particularly enthusiastic sex demon, and was unperturbed by the fact that Obito had grabbed a handful of his well-sculpted ass.

Best. Plan. Ever.

"Hey there so you– sweet Kami my eyes!" Kakashi shrieked.

Obito was not even remotely sorry.

 _A/N: that moment when you're checking how tall characters are because you have never seen them standing next to each other and you're *pretty sure* which one is taller but you're not 100% sure._

 _Also, I maybe had a bit too much fun writing this one. I regret nothing._


End file.
